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Michael HarrisGermany Local time: 03:23Member (2006) German to English

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Dec 7, 2016

I must admit (touch wood) I am not really worried about anything at the moment. As long as you do not do anything stupid and annoy your customers they will always be there for you, just like anonymous in these polls.

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I’m not exactly concerned: 2015 was an excellent year and 2016 is shaping up to be even better. I’ve been around for awhile (30 years full time+ 10 years part-time) and if I had to name one or two elements that are out of my control (I have control over all the other aspects mentioned by declining unacceptable jobs or terms or by negotiating them) would be irregularity of work (though this is also what makes the charm and the excitement of this profession) and late payment or even worse non-payment…

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I must admit (touch wood) I am not really worried about anything at the moment. As long as you do not do anything stupid and annoy your customers they will always be there for you, just like anonymous in these polls.

But I had to post something and that's what came out...

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I'm somewhat concerned about several of the aspects listed in this poll: ever-tightening deadlines, lack of incoming work (at the moment, anyway), illegible source texts offered, dodgy payment practices, haggling about per-word rate, mass emails offering work which is - presumably - assigned to the lowest bidder. Not universally, of course, but by certain agencies.

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Although there are clients out there who demand top-notch quality, there is a frightening number of agencies that get away with low-quality work for years.

Some of the translations I see in existing TMs are just amateurish, use common terms instead of the proper legal terms, or just plainly mistranslate expressions, etc. The fact that agencies can do this for years means that their end clients accept this low standard, as well. And that concerns me most. If the end clients accept or get used to low quality, they won't be willing to pay the higher rates that come with good quality.

P.S. Plus the lack of respect for professional translators.
Just the other day, an aggressive lady contacted me, asking for an official translation to be used in court. She can't use anyone for this, she needs a court translator licensed by the Ministry of Justice. When I explained I can't do it within her timeframe, basically overnight, she said 'oh but I can handle the translation, I only need you to put your stamp on it!'. I told her I don't work that way, I only affix my stamp on what I actually translated. She got so annoyed, she said she can do it elsewhere, only wanted to do me a favor, then said bye and ended the conversation.

[Edited at 2016-12-07 10:15 GMT]

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The dumbing down and corruption of the English language is something that concerns me a lot. There are, of course, several official variants of English (US, UK, Canada, Australia, etc.). However, for so many reasons, English is also now regularly spoken all over the world by people of other languages and cultures, resulting in a huge melting pot of all kinds of cultural and linguistic variations. As a result, there are so many discrepancies between what is considered acceptable and what is not, and the boundaries between right and wrong are very grey (or perhaps gray). I am just about as English as it is possible to be, and have lived in England all my life, apart from a few extended stays in other countries, but I often find my English corrected by native speakers of other languages. Consequently, I find myself trying to use the plainest possible English in my translations, to avoid misunderstanding, and so I, too, am contributing to the over-simplification of this highly complex and idiomatic language.

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